Qatar's World Cup Spending Spree

By

Matthew Futterman

Updated Jan. 13, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

Qatar's winning bid to hold the 2022 World Cup was marked by a spending spree that included investments in the home countries of several executives who were responsible for choosing the host nation, according to internal documents from the emirate's bidding committee.

The spending sheds light on how FIFA regulations—outlined in the two-page rules of conduct for World Cup host-nation bidding—left the door open for hopefuls to open wallets to exert indirect influence on international soccer's small circle of decision-makers.

Qatar also paid soccer-world luminaries—hailing from France, Spain, Argentina and elsewhere— who publicly endorsed its bid, according to Qatar bid committee documents and emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Some were paid more than a million dollars in connection with the endorsements, said a person familiar with the situation.

ENLARGE

A girl celebrates after the Qatar was chosen to host the 2022 World Cup in December.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The documents don't show that Qatar violated the rules set down for World Cup host-nation bidding by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, which in December chose host nations for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Rather, they highlight how Qatar worked within FIFA's broad guidelines to win what was initially seen as a quixotic quest to host international soccer's marquee event.

FIFA bidding rules bar prospective host nations from promising favors or gifts to FIFA executives or their representatives. But the rules don't address whether would-be hosts can invest in the home countries of these executives, who, using secret balloting, determine the host of what is arguably the world's most lucrative sporting event.

FIFA's decision to award the World Cup to Qatar capped a scandal-plagued campaign that included allegations that the Qatar committee and Spain-Portugal's 2018 bid committee colluded to trade support from Africa for support from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries for the committees' respective bid years. The committees said the allegations weren't true. FIFA's ethics body didn't punish the bid committees, saying it didn't find sufficient grounds to warrant punishment.

An official speaking on behalf of the Qatar bid committee and its chairman, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad al-Thani of the Qatar royal family, said Qatar did nothing wrong throughout the bid process.

A FIFA representative said its regulations ensured a fair and ethical competition. "FIFA has established clear rules of conduct for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup bidding process, which are also public and available on FIFA.com," the body said in a statement. "The bidding process has been supervised by FIFA's Ethics Committee since the beginning and this Committee acted whenever necessary."

ENLARGE

Qatar bid-committee documents outlined how the emirate expanded the activities of a Qatar-based soccer-training academy—Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence, also controlled by the Qatar royal family—into a total of 15 countries world-wide.

One bid-committee document from 2009 states plans to expand grass-roots soccer training in Nigeria and to "build a football academy in Thailand emulating the Aspire Football Dreams Academy in Senegal."

Both Thailand and Nigeria had representatives on FIFA's executive committee who, at the time the document was produced, could provide Qatar with two of the 13 votes it would need on Dec. 2, 2010, to secure hosting rights.

Thailand is home to executive committee member Worawi Makudi. According to people familiar with the FIFA's secret balloting, Mr. Makudi voted for Qatar in the final round.

In keeping with FIFA's rules on confidentiality, Mr. Makudi declined to confirm which country received his vote, but said it had nothing to do with the Thailand Football Dreams program referred to in Qatar's bid documents. "I don't know about this" Qatari plan to build an academy in Thailand, he said in an interview in late December, adding that Asian countries often send their best players to Qatar to train. "There is no deal about it at all."

According to the Qatar documents, in 2009, Aspire continued its work in 10 African countries through the Football Dreams program, three of which—Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Nigeria—were home to executive committee members. Executive committee members from Ivory Coast and Cameroon didn't return messages seeking comment. The Nigerian executive declined to comment.

In all, six of the 15 countries singled out by Qatar for Aspire expansion—or 40%—were home to FIFA executives. Internationally, by comparison, FIFA's two dozen executive committee members account for about 12% of its 208 member associations.

Qatar says programs have been held in the countries discussed. The Thailand academy has yet to be built. In a statement, Phil Hall, chairman of a London-based PHA Media, which is representing Qatar2022, said the group is proud of Aspire's academies and programs across the world. "Inevitably some are in countries which are the home of executive committee members and many are not," he said. "At no time were they established to secure votes."

Many in the international soccer community were dubious that FIFA would bring its flagship event to Qatar, which has an average summertime high temperature of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit and needed an estimated $50 billion in new infrastructure to host the event. Qatar's victory was criticized by Australian, U.K. and U.S. officials, whose bids for 2018 or 2022 were rejected though all received stronger scores for their technical or financial attributes from FIFA consultants.

Qatar officials say the criticism is a result of misconceptions and prejudices against the Middle East. FIFA has said bringing the World Cup to new lands is central to its mission to expand soccer internationally.

Last week, FIFA President Joseph "Sepp" Blatter said due to the extreme temperatures he expects the 2022 tournament to be held in the winter, breaking with the 90-year tradition of holding the cup during international soccer's traditional off-season.

Confidential Qatar committee bid documents reviewed by the Journal also show that on one occasion, Qatar bid officials and their advisers discussed circumventing a FIFA request, made in a letter to bid committees, not to hold high-profile events during the FIFA World Cup.

In a Jan. 4, 2010, strategy meeting, several top bidding committee executives discussed the need to improve Qatar's standing within the world soccer community by helping South Africa's poor during the 2010 World Cup there. "If FIFA regulations prevent these initiatives then a way has to be found to do these under a different name (e.g. through the embassy or as the State of Qatar)," minutes from the meeting state.

Qatar2022 spokesman Mr. Hall described the minutes as "an expression of strategic thought" and denied the committee attempted to circumvent FIFA rules. "We did not want the projects we planned to support to suffer because they may have been thought to be in contravention of FIFA rules," Mr. Hall said in a statement. "We subsequently concluded that any help from any Qatar organization could be misconstrued and they were NOT followed through."

FIFA regulations don't limit how much prospective bidders can spend. But a 2010 budget document reviewed by the Journal shows Qatar's bid committee had budgeted $43.3 million for marketing and event-related spending for that single year, a figure that hadn't previously been made public.

Qatar declined to disclose its total expenditure for the bid.

By comparison, the Australian government, which financed that country's effort, put its overall tab at $45 million for two years. U.S. bid officials said their campaign cost about $10 million, not counting in-kind contributions for such items as legal services and office space. A spokesman for Russia's successful 2018 bid said the country spent about $30 million, half from private sources and half from the government.

Watch Qatar's ad for the country's bid to host the soccer World Cup in 2022.

To talk up Qatar's quest, the nation hired an international slate of "bid ambassadors," including French star Zinedine Zidane, according to bid-committee documents. These endorsements were important, FIFA officials say, because they helped Qatar establish its legitimacy within FIFA and connections to executive committee members.

The FIFA rules on cup bidding don't address such payments. The U.S. and U.K. bid committees said they didn't pay celebrities who endorsed or worked on behalf of their bids.

A 2009 document called "Scope of Work for Zinedine Zidane," one of several similar ambassador documents reviewed by the Journal, proposed paying Mr. Zidane €900,000 ($1.17 million) for a series of appearances and €5,000 for each interview. Mr. Zidane received $3 million in all for his endorsement, a person familiar with the Qatar bid said.

In Qatar's public bid brochure, published last year, Mr. Zidane is quoted saying that what the youth of the Middle East are missing "is an event like the World Cup."

Mr. Zidane couldn't be reached for comment through several representatives. A spokesman for Qatar said: "These were confidential arrangements and thus I am unable to comment except to say the figures do not accurately reflect what our ambassadors were paid."

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